


Authorization

by ami_ven



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AOS season 2, Getting Together, M/M, Miscommunication, Project TAHITI
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 20:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19342174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: When the Chitauri attacked, Clint had still been Phil’s medical proxy.





	Authorization

Clint watched on the silent, grainy security feed as a figure stepped out of the dark side hallway and made the young agent— Ward, if his memory and lip-reading skills served him correctly— jump in surprise. Even on the low-resolution screen of his battered tablet computer, Clint had spotted the figure immediately— he wasn’t called Hawkeye for nothing. Of course, he had also trained himself to locate that familiar shape, to instantly pick out one ordinary-seeming man from crowds of people.

But Phil Coulson was hardly an ordinary man, even before—

On the screen, Phil smiled slightly, and Clint could see him say, “ _It’s a magical place_.”

Clint closed his eyes with a shuddering breath.

The first time Phil had woken up after the procedure, Clint had been holding Phil’s hand in both of his own and he’d offered a crooked smile as he said, “Hey, boss, how was Tahiti?”

Phil had smiled, squeezing Clint’s hand. “It’s a magical place,” he’d said.

Then, he’d started screaming.

Clint had scrambled out of the doctors’ way, but was unable to leave until they’d gotten Phil sedated again. Then, he’d stormed through the damaged helicarrier straight to Fury’s office.

“What the hell did you do to him?” he demanded.

“TAHITI,” said Fury. He slid a thick manila folder and a computer flash drive across the desk. “These don’t leave this office, Barton,” he said, and swept out.

For once, Clint wished he was better at following orders.

Because even as he watched the live-feed image of a living, breathing, smiling Phil, he could still see the medical bay footage from that flash drive, picture crisp and audio clear so that SHIELD surgeons could teach their successes and learn from their failures, of Phil strapped to a table and screaming like he was being murdered, like he _hadn’t_ when Loki had actually stabbed him— Clint knew, he’d seen that video, too. Watching the Phil of right now, talking with Maria Hill, he could still hear past-Phil begging the doctors to stop, to let him _die_.

And Clint had done that to him.

He’d missed Phil’s voice in his ear during the battle, but he’d been only just recently uncompromised and it had been mass chaos. He hadn’t realized he was searching the streets below for anything other than more alien invaders until Fury had come on the comm, with the crackle of switching to a private channel, “ _Coulson is down, Barton. I need your authorization to activate Project TAHITI._ ”

“Tahiti?”

“ _It’s bad_ ,” Fury had said, bluntly. “ _Time for drastic measures. Coulson’s been working on this one himself._ ”

Clint had agreed immediately— of course he had and Fury, the bastard, had known he would— when he thought it was something Phil had planned, something he could trust. _Phil_ , it turned out, had recommended that TAHITI be shut down, for being too dangerous, too cruel.

And Clint had put him through that.

Clint looked back at the security feed, still playing on his tablet, at Phil still looking faintly pleased, then shut it off and went to find out where Phil was taking his new team. So that Clint could go the other way.

*

The moment an arrow sliced through the air to pin the Hydra good sneaking up on Phil into the wall behind him, Phil felt an ache of longing so sharp that for a split-second, he thought he’d been shot.

“ _Clint_ ,” he breathed, before he could stop himself.

Phil followed the path of the arrow back to the upper deck of the parking garage on the roof of the next building and saw Clint standing on the concrete edge, firing more arrows at the vehicles full of more Hydra soldiers coming toward them.

“ _On your two o’clock, boss_ ,” said Clint’s voice over the comm and Phil spun, dropping the enemy agent as he began to hear ‘all clear’ signals from his team.

“That should be the last of them,” said May, stopping a few feet away.

Phil nodded, then took a deep breath and said, “Talk to me, Barton.”

“ _No sign of more hostiles, sir_ ,” said Clint, as though this was just another ordinary mission, as though he hadn’t appeared out of nowhere after two years of silence, swooping in to the rescue like a white knight.

“Acknowledged, Hawkeye,” said Phil, fighting to keep his own voice even. “Time to come in.”

There was a pause. “ _Yes, sir_.”

“I’ll supervise the cleanup,” said May. “Talk to him, Phil.”

He frowned. “It’s been two years, and he hasn’t—”

“It might not be the reason you think,” she said, and left before he could ask what she meant.

There was a fire escape on the outside wall of the parking structure, and Clint scaled down it easily, skipping several steps at a time and vaulting over the rails. Phil watched him— he’d forgotten how gracefully the archer could move.

He wondered what else he’d forgotten.

Clint stopped a few feet away. He was wearing his Avengers uniform, scuffed in places to show he’d been using it regularly, but there was something off about his stance.

“Director,” said Clint, smirking, and there was something off about that, too.

“Good shooting today,” Phil told him. “You probably saved quite a few lives. Including mine.”

Phil expected a smart remark, something boasting of Clint’s bowmanship— what he got was an almost hesitant, “ _Are_ you okay, sir?”

“Um,” said Phil. He’d figured that Clint had known he was alive, given his lack of surprise at seeing him, but he hadn’t really thought before now that since Natasha had released all of SHIELD’s secrets onto the internet, Clint might have realized how _not okay_ Phil had been recently. “It’s… under control.”

“Oh,” said Clint. 

He hesitated for another moment, fingers twitching at his side, like he did sometimes when they were in a tight spot and he was itching to use his bow. But he was already holding his bow, resting loosely in the fingers of his left hand, so…

“Clint—” Phil began, softly, but the archer squared his shoulders.

“Can we just do this, sir?” he interrupted.

Phil took a deep breath. “All right. I’m sorry, Clint. I should have told you myself that I was alive, instead of… however it was that you found out. It’s just that there were… complications, serious ones, and I just… until I _knew_ , I couldn’t…”

“I understand, sir,” said Clint, still in that oddly flat, _off_ tone of voice. He tightened his grip on his bow, until his knuckles turned white. “And I know I don’t deserve… But can you please just get the yelling over with?”

“I— What?” said Phil. “Why would _I_ yell at _you_?”

Clint had been avoiding his gaze, but now his head snapped up. “May said you knew,” he said. “She said you knew everything about—”

He stopped himself abruptly, but Phil finished, “— about TAHITI. It was my project, I remember that now. And I told Fury to shut it down. Bringing someone back wasn’t worth what it put them through, and I _told_ —”

“It was me,” Clint interrupted. He hunched his shoulders, a defensive posture Phil thought he’d broken him of years ago. “I didn’t know about TAHITI, sir, I swear, but I gave Fury my authorization to do anything, whatever it took.”

“Because you’re still listed as my medical proxy,” Phil said, slowly. “I never changed it after that op in Cairo. I decided not to.”

Clint snorted. “Well, you _should_ have. Because look at what it got you— your brain screwed with, all kinds of freaky alien crap in your system. But I couldn’t let you go. All the times you’ve saved me, I wanted… But just like everything else in my life, I screwed it up.”

“You didn’t…” Phil began.

He took a step forward and Clint’s fingers twitched again— as though he wanted to touch, Phil realized, as though he was stopping himself. Phil closed the space between them, pulling Clint into a rough hug, and the archer melted against him, letting his bow fall with a clatter to tangle both hands into the fabric of Phil’s suit jacket.

“I killed you, Phil.” said Clint, voice ragged against his shoulder. “The whole damn thing was my fault, and I had to go and make it _worse_ for you. You _screamed_ , Phil, and I—”

He broke off abruptly as Phil tightened his grip. “You _saved_ me, Clint,” he said, fiercely. “Today, and two years ago, and the day you joined SHIELD and reminded me that heroes still exist.”

“I’m not—” Clint began, but Phil just squeezed him quiet again.

“This second chance,” said Phil, pulling back just far enough to look at him. “I’ve been trying to take opportunities that I might have passed up before. Live on a plane, never order the salad, rebuild a shadowy government organization, that sort of thing.”

“Yeah?” asked Clint, part wary and part hopeful.

“Yeah,” Phil agreed. “There’s something else I’d like to try. If you’ll help.”

“Anything,” Clint replied, and he’d barely gotten the word out before Phil was kissing him, slow and gentle, hands sliding up to cup Clint’s face. 

“Yeah,” Phil said again, when they parted again. “That was better than I thought.”

“Yeah?” Clint challenged, with a shy smile. “Maybe you should try it from this side.”

He kissed Phil this time, pulling him close to deepen the kiss, until the need for air made them break it.

“Hmm,” said Phil said. “That’s good, too.”

Clint grinned. “Then you ought to keep trying, shouldn’t you?”

“That might take a while.”

“I’m willing if you are, sir,” said Clint.

Phil smiled, “I think that’s a mission I can authorize,” and kissed him again.

THE END


End file.
